Police chief calls Kroger shooting in Louisville a hate crime

Authorities say the suspect in Wednesday's deadly shooting at a Kentucky grocery store was earlier seen trying to gain access to a church with an African-American pastor and congregation. The suspect, Gregory Alan Bush, made his first court appearance Thursday. (Oct. 25)
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Members of the First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown in Kentucky hold hands during a Sunday morning prayer service Oct. 28, 2018.(Photo: Scott Utterback/Courier Journal)

Police call Kroger shooting a hate crime

Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers told the congregation at First Baptist Church on Sunday that the shooting was motivated by racism. He called it "the elephant in the room that some don’t want to acknowledge in this case" and said it needed to be addressed as part of a larger dialogue.

"I won’t stand here and pretend that none of us know what could have happened if that evil man had gotten in the doors of this church," Rogers said, noting the alleged shooter told one man "whites don’t kill whites" before his capture.

Police mark evidence in the parking lot of a Jeffersontown Kroger on Thursday afternoon after a shooting where multiple people were injured. Police reported two people were killed. Oct. 24, 2018 Matt Stone, Courier Journal

A police officer walks by a gun which lies on the ground outside a Jeffersontown Kroger Wednesday afternoon after a shooting with 'multiple injuries' was reported. One body was observed on the parking lot. Police later reported two people had died. Oct. 24, 2018 Matt Stone,Courier Journal

A gun lies on the ground outside a Jeffersontown Kroger Wednesday afternoon after a shooting with 'multiple injuries' was reported. One body was observed on the parking lot. Oct. 24, 2018 Matt Stone/Louisville Courier Journal

A woman looks away as she stands next to a police officer as bullet casings lay in the parking lot of a Jeffersontown Kroger on Thursday afternoon after a shooting where multiple people were injured. Police say two people were killed. Oct. 24, 2018 Matt Stone/Louisville Courier Journal

Black Lives Matter calls out public officials

Shortly after the shooting, the Pittsburgh public safety director told reporters that the incident was being investigated as a hate crime. That wasn't the case in Louisville.

Criticism came from Louisville's black leaders on Sunday because some of the city and state's most prominent politicians haven't decried the possible racial motivations.

"It was also an act of terrorism," said Truman Harris with Louisville's Black Lives Matter group. "It's ridiculous that Mayor Fischer, that Matt Bevin, that Mitch McConnell are taking as long as they are in acknowledging this as what it is. If this person was a black or brown terrorist, it would have been acknowledged right then and there."

U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman said last week that federal investigators are "examining this matter from the perspective of federal criminal law, which includes potential civil rights violations such as hate crimes."

Speaking to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in Kentucky, McConnell began by commenting on the "horrendous" shootings in Pittsburgh and Louisville.

"If these aren't the definitions of hate crimes, I don't know what a hate crime is," the senator said Monday in his speech at Kentucky's Capitol in Frankfort. "I know that's a legal determination to be made by others, but that's certainly my opinion."

Gregory Bush remains on $5 million bond

Court records show that Bush has a history of mental health problems and violence and at least one instance when he used a racial slur.

In 2001, Bush's ex-wife, who is black, sought an emergency protective order against Bush after he allegedly yelled threats at her and twice called her a "(N-word) bitch." A judge barred Bush from having or buying guns as part of that order, which was effective for three years.

And in a 2009 domestic violence case involving his father, Bush was ordered by a judge to surrender his guns and undergo mental health treatment.

Bush's father sought emergency protection from the courts after he said Bush lifted his mother off the ground by her neck and hit him in the jaw. He had been threatening to shoot his parents, with whom he lived, in the days leading up to the January 2009 assault.

In court filings, Bush identified himself as having Schizoaffective disorder, and his ex-wife also identified him in a different court filing as paranoid.

'You’ve gotta sing through your tears some days'

On Sunday, at St. Bartholomew Church in Buechel and the Church of the Living God in Russell, congregants mourned the deaths of Stallard and Jones.

They tried to grapple with tough questions as to why two members of their flock would be killed in an act of senseless violence.

After various Bible readings, the Rev. Nick Brown in Buechel said none answered the burning question: “Why do bad things happen?”

“The difficult answer to that question is, of course, that God really chooses not to give us an answer to it,” Brown said. “There is no answer in our Scripture or in our church teaching. There is no answer to why bad things happen, we just know that it does.”

Patricia Fulce-Smith, the wife of the minister at the Church of the Living God in Russell, and two other women sang "God wants to heal you everywhere you hurt."